WATCH LIST: November 2017

By Observer Staff

Culture

November 2017

Christine (Saoirse Ronan), who prefers to call herself Lady Bird, dreams of going to school far away from her hometown. Drawing on writer-director Greta Gerwig’s own experience, this is a brave, colourful film about leaving the nest, but its real heart is the relationship between a daughter and her mother (Laurie Metcalf), who struggle to connect during a transformative time. Nov. 17

The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion — Surprising Observations of a Hidden WorldBY PETER WOHLLEBEN (Greystone Books)

Can animals feel, think or love? Many pet owners insist they have a genuine connection with Fido or Fluffy, and now there’s science to back it up. In this followup to his bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben combines research and his own observations to show that animals, like us, experience the world in rich, emotional ways. Nov. 7

God: A Human HistoryBY REZA ASLAN (Random House)

In 2013, religious scholar Reza Aslan published the New York Times bestseller Zealot, exploring Jesus the man and the stories told about him. Now, Aslan sets his sights on an even more ambitious topic: God. Spanning religious traditions, this wide-ranging history of humanity’s ideas about the divine argues that what we think about God is a projection of what we think about ourselves. Nov. 7

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is out of options. Months after the investigation into her daughter’s murder dries up, she rents three billboards outside her small town to demand action from the police. The attention they receive lights a fire under the police chief (Woody Harrelson), and the conflict between them escalates quickly in this darkly funny, critically acclaimed drama. Nov. 17

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by Kristy Woudstra

Editorials

by Jocelyn Bell

Video

by Observer Staff

Anne Bokma left the Dutch Reformed Church as a young adult and eventually became a member of the United Church and then the Unitarian Universalists. Having long explored the "spiritual but not religious" demographic as a writer, she decided to immerse herself in practices — like hiring a soul coach, secular choir-singing and forest bathing — for 12 months to find both enlightenment and entertainment.

A preacher’s kid pretended to be a devout daughter, but secretly she felt lost in a wilderness of doubt.

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